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KingCrInuYasha View Drop Down
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Points: 1281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 29 2016 at 13:19
Not surprisingly, this was the first Beach Boys album I listened to and it's a toss up between this and The Smile Sessions as my favourite of theirs. Those, and a custom compilation I made of their best 1965 material.
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Dean View Drop Down
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 29 2016 at 23:26
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

^ Many times, but this thread is an appreciation thread not an esoteric discussion about what genre it is or whether it was proto-proto-prog, I shouldh't have responded to David's claim that it was "deeply influential on the British" but you know me...
Was not my post a show of appreciation that was germane to a website dedicated to prog? And when did discussing genres become an a esoteric exercise? If PA is composed of nothing but the obscure, then I'm in the wrong place. Confused
This thread is in General Music Discussions ergo this site's forum is not wholly dedicated to prog and therefore this thread is not about Prog, in the past you have professed to not liking the Beach Boys so I do wonder how this morphed into an appreciation of Pet Sounds. The problem with discussions of genre is that they only end well when the person who triggered the discussion gets their own way because that's the only way you can get them to stop going on about it; such discussions are not esoteric exercises, they are esoteric discussions.
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SteveG View Drop Down
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Points: 20616 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 30 2016 at 08:12
Tongue
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

^ Many times, but this thread is an appreciation thread not an esoteric discussion about what genre it is or whether it was proto-proto-prog, I shouldh't have responded to David's claim that it was "deeply influential on the British" but you know me...
Was not my post a show of appreciation that was germane to a website dedicated to prog? And when did discussing genres become an a esoteric exercise? If PA is composed of nothing but the obscure, then I'm in the wrong place. Confused
This thread is in General Music Discussions ergo this site's forum is not wholly dedicated to prog and therefore this thread is not about Prog, in the past you have professed to not liking the Beach Boys so I do wonder how this morphed into an appreciation of Pet Sounds. The problem with discussions of genre is that they only end well when the person who triggered the discussion gets their own way because that's the only way you can get them to stop going on about it; such discussions are not esoteric exercises, they are esoteric discussions.
The confusion may be my fault, so I'll be clear. I like the Pet Sounds album but little of the Smile related material and have said so. Perhaps that's where the confusion comes in.
Regardless if this is a non prog appreciation thread. It concerns music and the possibility that the OP is a prog fan is quite high. Associating the Beach Boys with proto prog would be a sign of appreciation. Unless someone does not like them, then the opposite would hold true. I'll rely on my calculated guess that the OP is a prog fan and stand fast. 
 
Btw, Beach Boys forever! Brian Wilson is a genius! Tongue (Just clear up any lingering doubts.)
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Points: 16130 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 30 2016 at 08:25
Smile sessions and Surf's Up are actually my top BB albums, but Pet Sounds has some wonderful songs. To think I hated the very sound of this band when I was growing up. It was getting into prog that made me appreciate the Beach Boys. Believe it or not.

Heroes & Villains and Good Vibrations are two of the best pop songs ever written IMO.
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SteveG View Drop Down
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Points: 20616 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 01 2016 at 04:23
Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

Smile sessions and Surf's Up are actually my top BB albums, but Pet Sounds has some wonderful songs. To think I hated the very sound of this band when I was growing up. It was getting into prog that made me appreciate the Beach Boys. Believe it or not.

Heroes & Villains and Good Vibrations are two of the best pop songs ever written IMO.
I consider Surf's Up and Sunflower to be really solid (mostly) post Brian Wilson BB albums. Non the less, they are both excellent albums and demonstrated that the BBs could make some good music without relying on Brian. 
Good Vibrations, naturally, is the highlight of the Smiley Smile album and is the group's highpoint as well. Except for the song Surf's Up, intended for the Smile album, there's not much else of that material that thrills me. My reasons are too numerous and too lengthy to explain why, but I feel that they are valid.
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KingCrInuYasha View Drop Down
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Points: 1281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 01 2016 at 09:42
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Except for the song Surf's Up, intended for the Smile album, there's not much else of that material that thrills me. My reasons are too numerous and too lengthy to explain why, but I feel that they are valid.

I'd like to hear those reasons anyway, just out of curiosity.
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SteveG View Drop Down
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Points: 20616 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 01 2016 at 14:11
Originally posted by KingCrInuYasha KingCrInuYasha wrote:

Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

Except for the song Surf's Up, intended for the Smile album, there's not much else of that material that thrills me. My reasons are too numerous and too lengthy to explain why, but I feel that they are valid.

I'd like to hear those reasons anyway, just out of curiosity.
Basically, its because Brian lost the harmonious vibe he projected with Pet Sounds' music and Tony Asher's wonderfully optimistic lyrics, albeit viewed from a teenager's POV. The Smile material was originally supposed to be a "fun album" with cornball vocal gags and nonsense lyrics that quickly morphed into something else.  Van Dyke Parks lyrics from Surf's Up ,"Dim chandelier awaken me, hung velvet overtaken me"  rings more in tune with the song Grand Hotel by Procol Harum. It's a world  and 180 degrees away from the song Wouldn't It Be Nice, that leads off Pet Sounds, or anything that sounds "fun" or "humorous" that Brian proposed for the Smile album. The fact that album was pre-titled Smile was due to it's songs being so funny "that they will make you smile." When an artist goes off track, a train wreck usually follows. And Smile was a train wreck.

Plus the fact that Wilson mentally couldn't finish the album gives me pause to think that his brain was not firing on all eight musically and emotionally, even early into starting the Smile recordings. This is conjecture on my part, but it guides my feelings regarding the Smile material. The Smile material was also highly mythologized, IMO, into being something much greater than it actually was. 


Edited by SteveG - December 01 2016 at 15:33
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KingCrInuYasha View Drop Down
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Points: 1281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 02 2016 at 00:07
I first I had no idea what you were talking about when you were referring to "cornball vocal gags", but then I remembered The Smile Sessions came with some tracks that had Brian trapped in a piano and microphone, along with other such novelties.

I have to agree, to an extent, about the over-mythologizing of Smile. As excellent as the songs are - including "Heroes And Villains", "Cabinessence" "Wonderful", "Surf's Up", "Vegetables", "Holidays", "Wind Chimes", "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and, of course, "Good Vibrations" - holy Censored, the album was over-hyped to an insane degree, and this was well before the project imploded. I'm reading the Catch A Wave bio on Brian Wilson, and not only did Capitol print about a half million album covers before the there was even an album, but there was supposed to be film projects, comedy works, mini films and so on.

It also didn't help that Brian made the mistake of releasing an unfinished version of "Heroes And Villains" as a single and it was a miracle it even got to #12 in the first place (well, that, and it was following "Good Vibrations").
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Tom Ozric View Drop Down
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Points: 15926 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 02 2016 at 01:39
Vegetables is a rubbish song. Never did like that.
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SteveG View Drop Down
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Points: 20616 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 02 2016 at 04:20
Originally posted by Tom Ozric Tom Ozric wrote:

Vegetables is a rubbish song. Never did like that.
Yes, that was one of Brian's humorous songs that stayed mostly intact from it's inception. And frankly, it wasn't that humorous. Another chink in the Smile armor.
 
There's also early alt version of Heroes and Villains that pauses while Brian interjects another supposably humorous line "You're under arrest" followed by a ricocheted bullet sound. Again, not very funny, IMHO. 


Edited by SteveG - December 02 2016 at 07:11
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